Ministry of Jal Shakti
WATER CONSERVATION IN CITIES
Water being a State subject, efforts to conserve water including rainwater harvesting is primarily States’ responsibility. However, National Water Policy  formulated by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, inter-alia, advocates conservation, promotion and protection of water and highlights the need for augmenting the availability of water through rain water harvesting, direct use of rainfall and other management measures. The National Water Policy  has been forwarded to all State Governments/UTs and concerned Ministries/Departments of Central Government for adoption.
CGWB has prepared a report entitled “Groundwater Situations in Select Cities in India”. The report provides the demand and water supply information collected from the respective water supply department in the city and also analyses the groundwater situations in these cities. However, the cities of Maharashtra have not been taken up for the report preparation. A summary of the report, as provided by CGWB, is Annexure.
Jal Shakti Abhiyan was conducted in 2019 in 1592 blocks out of 2836 blocks in 256 water stressed districts of the country and was expanded as “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain”  in 2021 with the theme “Catch the Rain – Where it Falls When it Falls” to cover all the blocks of all districts  across the country. “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain”  -2022 campaign, the third in the series of JSAs, was launched by Hon’ble President on 29.03.2022 in all districts  of the country for implementation from 29 March, 2022 to 30 November, 2022 - the pre-monsoon and monsoon period.
The focused interventions of the campaign include  water conservation and rainwater harvesting;  enumerating, geo-tagging & making inventory of all water bodies; preparation of scientific plans for water conservation based on it  Setting up of Jal Shakti Kendras in all districts  intensive afforestation and  awareness generation.
NWM tied up with Department of Youth Affairs to spread awareness to cover 31,150 villages in 623 districts on JSA: CTR campaign using the vast network of Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan  and its youth clubs. The awareness generation drive by NYKS, started in December 2020, formed the foundation of the massive involvement of the people in the JSA: CTR campaign. NYKS have engaged over 3.82 crore people in 36.60 lakh activities in the campaign through activities like rallies, Jal Choupals, quizzes, debates, slogan writing competitions, wall writings etc. The power of the youth of the country is being tapped by involving Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangthan  to sensitize the populace on different aspects of water management. Involvement of NYKS is extended in the JSA: CTR 2022 also to carry out their activities through their vast network in the country.
Also, the Information Education Communication activities are undertaken by the Ministry of Jal Shakti to disseminate the message of water conservation among the people. The social media team of the Department regularly creates informative posts regarding the water conservation and highlights the programmes/schemes of the Ministry on social media handles of the Department like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and KooApp. Further, press release on important events of Ministry is also shared regularly with Press Information Bureau .
This information was given by the Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Shri Bishweswar Tudu in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.